Uberman Sleep Log - Day 6

Well, as you may already know, if you have read The Uberman Logs, then you will know that the Uberman was way too tough of a transition for me. Whether it’s because I’m not a vegetarian or because I have a crazy schedule, this method put a huge strain on my body and my mind. I was literally going loopy toward the end of Day 5. So I decided to calm it down a little and begin doing the Everyman polyphasic sleep schedule. And that’s where the name change has come in.

So we’re not literally starting on Day 6 of the Everyman schedule, but Day 6 is basically what I’m on with trying out different polyphasic sleeping methods. For the first 5 days I was on the Uberman, and now I’m going to begin the Everyman: 3 Nap schedule.

This schedule consists of 3 hours of sleep at night and three 20-minute naps during the day. I’ll have to space it all out perfectly, but we’ll see how it goes. Here’s how my schedule will look:

Core Sleep from 4 am – 7 am

Nap 1: 10 am

Nap 2: 1 pm

Nap 3: 10 pm

Recharge

So at about 11 am today I laid down on my lazy-boy and fell asleep for a good hour and a half. This felt absolutely amazing. It did wonders for my mind and my body. It was also the sort of recharge that I needed to change my routine yet again. So now that I’ll be doing the Everyman 3 Nap schedule, I wanted to reset myself (sort of) so that I could stay up til 10 pm tonight and take a nap then.

I began feeling extremely tired again around 6 pm (when my other nap would be), but I stayed up long enough to get my next nap in at 10 pm. We’ll see how well this works out, but as of right now, it’s all I can do. I seriously could not function at home while in the Uberman transition period. If the transition time was shorter (maybe only a couple days like that of Steve Pavlina’s) then I probably could have found the energy to keep going. But now we take a different path to see what will happen. I’m really excited to sleep those 3 hours at 4 am tomorrow.

10 pm Nap

This was a decent nap. What was different about this one was that I actually had a small dream. Well, it was more of a nightmare. I was trapped under something and couldn’t breath. So I woke up from that, but then fell right back to sleep. But I woke up fine; a little tired, but still fine. Now I’ll see if I can stay up until 4 am and then sleep some more.

One thing that I find interesting is that my body temperature drops tremendously on less sleep. I know it normally does when you sleep, but even when I wake up, I am always feeling cold since I began this experiment.

Another thing is now that I slept for a little bit (the 2 hours earlier), I feel as though I really want to get back into the Uberman schedule again and see if it works. But I know, from experience, that I’ll be tired once again and won’t be able to handle the effect the tiredness has on me. So Everyman, here I come. Wish me luck!

12 Hours Later

A building has just been dropped on me.

And what I mean is that the Everyman absolutely did not work. Here’s what happened.

I had my 10 pm nap and felt pretty decent. Then I started to get tired and sleepy again for my normal 2 am nap, but I chose not to take it so that I could sleep for a full 3 hrs at 4 am.

So I put a movie on and watched it until 4 am and then went to bed. Wow, I had no idea what was ahead of me.

I woke up at 7 am and didn’t know where I was. My daughter was pulling at me to get up and play with her while my mind, body, and emotions were telling me that I just got hit by a massive wave of REM sleep.

I walked outside my bedroom at 7 am and walked to the couch and sat down. The next thing I knew, it was 11 am and I was still groggy and tired.

What I think happened was that allowing myself to sleep 3 hours made my mind go into REM sleep for a good amount of time and I wasn’t used to that yet.

So I woke up confused, tired, and emotionally drained. For some reason I just wanted to cry. I wanted to give up on everything and lay in a corner to die. It was pretty pathetic.

My New Plan

So after an hour of zoning, I came to and talked with my wife about what I should do. I guess that while I was sleeping, she put together 4 different tables that showed when I was asleep, when I was awake, when I was working, and when I had time for her and the girls. The tables were pretty elaborate and I was quite impressed. But we came to a conclusion that I needed to go right back onto the Uberman schedule. We could consider this to be a relapse and I could continue to do the 20-minute naps throughout the day. Yes, I was extremely tired, but it was nothing like what I experienced today.

Plus, my mind feels a little normal again, and I’m asking myself how I could EVER get to a place of quitting. Let’s just say that your body and mind will play tricks on you to get you to give up early. Now I understand completely why others didn’t make it through the first week. It’s tough! And because of the lack of sleep you begin to think a differently, even a little nutty.

So I laugh as I say this, but “Uberman, here I come!”

If you want to keep up with all of the sleep logs, here's what I have been through thus far: